Police Arrest 21-Year-Old Suspect in Stabbing of French Soldier

French police arrested a suspect on Wednesday in the weekend assault on French soldier Cédric Cordiez, who was stabbed in the throat while on patrol in La Défense, outside Paris.

Paris prosecutor Xavier Mollins said the suspect, he called Alexandre, will be 22 years old on Thursday and is known to be a follower of “radical Islam.”

"The suspected perpetrator of the attack on a soldier Saturday evening in La Defense (business district) was arrested this morning," Interior Minister Manuel Valls said in a statement.

Cordiez, 23, had been patrolling a business district with two colleagues around 6 p.m. on April 25 when an assailant slashed his throat from behind. Police said surveillance footage of the area showed a suspect around age 35, with a beard, who was wearing an Arab-style tunic.

The Saturday attack in Paris came three days after a soldier was beheaded in Woolwich, London, in broad daylight. The London terrorists made onlookers record them as one explained the soldier’s death was retaliation for Britain’s involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Valls said there is no immediate connection made between the French suspect and the incident in Woolwich. "We have to learn more about his motivations, his record, his background," he told the iTele network. He did, however, note the suspect’s tie to radical Islam.